Heart Tracks - The Conversation

"Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Summon before Me the seventy leaders of Israel. Bring them to the Tabernacle to stand there with you. I will come down and talk to you there. I will take some of the Spirit that is upon you, and I will put the Spirit upon them also." Numbers 11:16-17....."I called you so often, but you didn't come. I reached out to you but you paid no attention." Proverbs 1:24

What does it mean to have a conversation with someone? In our relationships, how many do we actually have? We may talk a great deal, but are we talking to someone or at them? More, what part does our listening play in it all? Do we even listen to begin with? Someone once said that we listen very little to what anyone says in such "conversations" because we are most intent on expressing what we think. If this is so in our interactions with people, what marks our conversations with Him? Can they even be called conversations to begin with?

I heard Bob Beaudine say of Numbers 11:17 that God "calls us to a conversation." We speak a lot about being called in the Church. Usually it has most to do with what we're going to do and where we're going to go. What do we really know about the call to come and speak with Him? Jesus invited all to "come and learn of Me." Hard to do when our focus is mainly upon what we think we're to be saying and doing, and where we're to be going. Oswald Chambers the great man of God and teacher of missionaries said that the call of the Father is always first to come, not to go. How rarely we do so. How often we are absorbed in what we think we need to doing, but not in what we need to be hearing. How many spiritual dead ends would we avoid if we came first to Him, to a conversation? One where we spend very little time talking, and a great deal of time listening.

I have spent so much of what I called my "prayer life" talking at Him but not to Him. Intent on getting my wants, needs and desires heard, but having little or no focus on His. In every aspect of our lives, He seeks to "come down to us" and reveal His heart and mind. He has deep spiritual mysteries to share, but can't because we don't stop talking, moving, and going so that He can. As Proverbs says, He is continuously calling to us, reaching out to us, but we don't hear, and we don't see. So we pursue our dreams and not His. We forge ahead on our way, but miss His.

The longing of His heart is that we would linger enough in His Presence that He may "come down to us." When that happens, something miraculous takes place. As He comes down, He lifts us up to Him. When that happens, everything changes. It starts with a conversation. He calls you and I to one today, now. Do we come......or do we go on paying no attention?

Blessings,
Pastor O